Rudolf Margolius
"Margolius … survived the Nazi concentration camps and after the war enrolled into the Communist Party from the real conviction: that never again would be repeated what had happened in the past, that no one would be persecuted for his or hers racial, national or social origins, in order for all people to be equal, in order to establish an era of real freedom. A couple of years later the comrades succeeded in what the Nazis had not managed: they killed him." Pavel Tigrid, Kapesní průvodce inteligentní ženy po vlastním osudu, 68 Publishers, Toronto 1988, p. 97.
In Memoriam
JUDr Rudolf Margolius 31st August 1913, Prague – 3rd December 1952, Prague,
lawyer and economist, Third Deputy Minister for Foreign Trade, Prague, Czechoslovakia 1949 – 1952.
Rudolf Margolius never held any Party appointments, he was purely a lawyer and economist.
Victim of the Slánský Trial, 20th – 27th November 1952, Prague.
Rudolf Margolius was born in Prague Vinohrady into a patriotic Czech, middle-class milieu. As a law student in the thirties at Charles University, studying together with the Czech poet Hanuš Bonn, he devoted much of his time to the YMCA travelling in Western Europe, Middle East and the USA. During Czechoslovakia's Munich crisis with Germany he was serving in the Czechoslovak Army together with his friend, music composer, Jan Hanuš. In 1939, while Czechoslovakia was already occupied by the Third Reich, he married Heda Blochová (later known as Heda Margolius Kovály.
In 1941 he was deported to the Łódź Ghetto together with Heda and her parents and subsequently to concentration camps in Auschwitz, and then Rudolf was moved to Riederloh, Mühldorf and Dachau camps. In May 1945 after escaping from Dachau, he was made a leader of the Garmisch-Partenkirchen camp for the war refugees.
After returning to Prague in June 1945 together with Jarmila Čapková Margolius went to Bergen-Belsen camp to search for the writer Josef Čapek. Margolius spoke Czech, English, German, French, Polish, and partly Spanish, Italian and Russian.
In December 1945 he joined the Czechoslovak Communist Party influenced by the Munich betrayal, his war experiences and murder of his parents and relatives in the concentration camps and hope of instituting better future for the country without antisemitism and discrimination.
Between 1945 and 1948 he worked for the Central Federation of Czechoslovak Industry in Prague. Afterward he was promoted to the Chief of Staff of the Minister for Foreign Trade (1948–49) and subsequently became a Third Deputy Minister for Foreign Trade responsible for the sector trading with Western countries (1949–52). Together with his colleague, Evžen Löbl, Margolius was the author of dollar offensive in the Czechoslovak economic policy. In London in 1949 Margolius negotiated and signed several important economic and financial agreements with Ernest Bevin and Sir William Strang who represented the British Government. The agreements through Margolius' effort were weighted in favour of the Czechoslovak trade rather than the British trade. Czechoslovak government was satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations and requested that the effort of all those who had participated would be appreciated.
Margolius was a lawyer and economist and was not directly involved in the contemporary Communist Party machinations or politics, he did not hold any Party posts.
Having realised the Party corruption and suppression of freedom he resigned his position in May 1951, but his resignation was not accepted, he was ordered to continue in his position.
Rudolf Margolius was arrested on 10 January 1952. After months of physical and psychological coercion in addition to being forced to sign a false confession, Margolius met for the first time his alleged conspirators led by Rudolf Slánský at the Czechoslovak High Court attached to the Pankrác prison in Prague in November 1952. Margolius was chosen as a member of the ‘conspiracy’ because in his capacity as Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Foreign Trade he made trade agreements with capitalist countries against the wishes of the Soviet Union to increase trade with other socialist countries and he dealt with large monetary sums in order to be able to agree economic deals. These details had a great impact on contemporary public opinion. As had been determined in advance in Moscow and by the Czechoslovak Communist Party's Central Committee, the court sentenced Margolius and ten others to death, three received life sentences. Eight of the executed were Jews. The Times on 28 November 1952 commented: "The only surprising aspect...is that Margolius...is not among those who have been given the reduced penalty." A few hours before the execution during his talk with Heda, Rudolf told her: "I read a good book while I was here. It was called Men of Clear Conscience."
On 3 December 1952, at the execution, Margolius did not pronounce any last words.
In 1963 a secret Party rehabilitation absolved Rudolf Margolius of all the false accusations, but no public announcement had been made. The Order of Republic In Memoriam medal awarded to Rudolf Margolius by President Ludvík Svoboda on 30 April 1968 without any public explanation carried no bearing on clearing Margolius' and his family name and honour.
Despite that both the Czechoslovak state and the Communist Party complicity, to this day, no official public apology for Rudolf Margolius' murder has been pronounced by the governments of the Czech Republic since its establishment after the Velvet Revolution in November 1989.
'Stát mi zavraždil otce a dodnes se za to neomluvil.' (The State Murdered My Father But Refuses to Apologise To This Day), Interview in Czech with Ivan Margolius, May 2018 on Aktualne.cz
JUDr Rudolf Margolius 31st August 1913, Prague – 3rd December 1952, Prague,
lawyer and economist, Third Deputy Minister for Foreign Trade, Prague, Czechoslovakia 1949 – 1952.
Rudolf Margolius never held any Party appointments, he was purely a lawyer and economist.
Victim of the Slánský Trial, 20th – 27th November 1952, Prague.
Rudolf Margolius was born in Prague Vinohrady into a patriotic Czech, middle-class milieu. As a law student in the thirties at Charles University, studying together with the Czech poet Hanuš Bonn, he devoted much of his time to the YMCA travelling in Western Europe, Middle East and the USA. During Czechoslovakia's Munich crisis with Germany he was serving in the Czechoslovak Army together with his friend, music composer, Jan Hanuš. In 1939, while Czechoslovakia was already occupied by the Third Reich, he married Heda Blochová (later known as Heda Margolius Kovály.
In 1941 he was deported to the Łódź Ghetto together with Heda and her parents and subsequently to concentration camps in Auschwitz, and then Rudolf was moved to Riederloh, Mühldorf and Dachau camps. In May 1945 after escaping from Dachau, he was made a leader of the Garmisch-Partenkirchen camp for the war refugees.
After returning to Prague in June 1945 together with Jarmila Čapková Margolius went to Bergen-Belsen camp to search for the writer Josef Čapek. Margolius spoke Czech, English, German, French, Polish, and partly Spanish, Italian and Russian.
In December 1945 he joined the Czechoslovak Communist Party influenced by the Munich betrayal, his war experiences and murder of his parents and relatives in the concentration camps and hope of instituting better future for the country without antisemitism and discrimination.
Between 1945 and 1948 he worked for the Central Federation of Czechoslovak Industry in Prague. Afterward he was promoted to the Chief of Staff of the Minister for Foreign Trade (1948–49) and subsequently became a Third Deputy Minister for Foreign Trade responsible for the sector trading with Western countries (1949–52). Together with his colleague, Evžen Löbl, Margolius was the author of dollar offensive in the Czechoslovak economic policy. In London in 1949 Margolius negotiated and signed several important economic and financial agreements with Ernest Bevin and Sir William Strang who represented the British Government. The agreements through Margolius' effort were weighted in favour of the Czechoslovak trade rather than the British trade. Czechoslovak government was satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations and requested that the effort of all those who had participated would be appreciated.
Margolius was a lawyer and economist and was not directly involved in the contemporary Communist Party machinations or politics, he did not hold any Party posts.
Having realised the Party corruption and suppression of freedom he resigned his position in May 1951, but his resignation was not accepted, he was ordered to continue in his position.
Rudolf Margolius was arrested on 10 January 1952. After months of physical and psychological coercion in addition to being forced to sign a false confession, Margolius met for the first time his alleged conspirators led by Rudolf Slánský at the Czechoslovak High Court attached to the Pankrác prison in Prague in November 1952. Margolius was chosen as a member of the ‘conspiracy’ because in his capacity as Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Foreign Trade he made trade agreements with capitalist countries against the wishes of the Soviet Union to increase trade with other socialist countries and he dealt with large monetary sums in order to be able to agree economic deals. These details had a great impact on contemporary public opinion. As had been determined in advance in Moscow and by the Czechoslovak Communist Party's Central Committee, the court sentenced Margolius and ten others to death, three received life sentences. Eight of the executed were Jews. The Times on 28 November 1952 commented: "The only surprising aspect...is that Margolius...is not among those who have been given the reduced penalty." A few hours before the execution during his talk with Heda, Rudolf told her: "I read a good book while I was here. It was called Men of Clear Conscience."
On 3 December 1952, at the execution, Margolius did not pronounce any last words.
In 1963 a secret Party rehabilitation absolved Rudolf Margolius of all the false accusations, but no public announcement had been made. The Order of Republic In Memoriam medal awarded to Rudolf Margolius by President Ludvík Svoboda on 30 April 1968 without any public explanation carried no bearing on clearing Margolius' and his family name and honour.
Despite that both the Czechoslovak state and the Communist Party complicity, to this day, no official public apology for Rudolf Margolius' murder has been pronounced by the governments of the Czech Republic since its establishment after the Velvet Revolution in November 1989.
'Stát mi zavraždil otce a dodnes se za to neomluvil.' (The State Murdered My Father But Refuses to Apologise To This Day), Interview in Czech with Ivan Margolius, May 2018 on Aktualne.cz
The Times, London, 2 June, 1949
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“Der Justizmord an Rudolf Margolius Er hat Auschwitz und Dachau überlebt. Dann wird der jüdische Politiker Opfer einer mörderischen antisemitischen Kampagne der Sowjets. Sein Sohn Ivan kämpft bis heute um Wiedergutmachung.”, Lucien Scherrer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 24 February, 2024, Feuilleton 5. Bund, pp. 48 - 50 (of the paper edition).
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"... Na druhou stranu tu ovšem byli osobnosti jako Rudolf Margolius, který byl ryzím technokratem, a o kterém se dá s klidným svědomím říci, že byl naprosto nevinný." Medium.Seznam.cz, 1 December, 2023.
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The Youngest Hanged in the Trial with the Slánský Group was Rudolf Margolius. But Why Him, is a Mystery to Historians. ("Nejmladším oběšeným v procesu se skupinou Slánského byl Rudolf Margolius. Proč zrovna on, je ale pro historiky záhadou.")
David Hertl, Český rozhlas Plus, 1 December, 2022 (in Czech).
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Le Procès - Prague 1952, (2021) 1hr 10min documentary film by Ruth Zylberman for ARTE France & Pernel Media had the world premiere at the FIPADOC International Documentary Festival, Biarritz, France on January 18, 2022. The new documentary made from the Slánský trial film and audio records found by chance in 2018 in a warehouse in the suburb of Prague served as a starting point for this documentary film. The director tells the story of the trial through the descendants of three of the condemned: the daughter and grandson of Rudolf Slánský, the son and granddaughter of Rudolf Margolius, both executed after the trial, and the three children of Artur London, who was sentenced to life imprisonment
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In London in 1949 Rudolf Margolius negotiated and signed several important economic and financial agreements with Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour and National Service, and Sir William Strang, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who represented the British Government. The agreements through Margolius' effort were weighted in favour of the Czechoslovak trade rather than the British trade. Czechoslovak government was satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations and requested that the effort of all those who had participated would be appreciated. (Jan Kuklík, Do poslední pence, Nakladatelství Karolinum, Praha, 2007, p. 286)
However, during the Slánský Trial, Rudolf Margolius' 1949 negotiations were unjustly held against him.He was accused of sabotage and endangering the Czechoslovak economy, which became one of the main indictment against him.
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"Never in my life have I heard or recognised a nightingale's song. Now under the window, outside, I hear every day, but mainly in the morning when the sun rises and in the evening at sunset, the beautiful solo song of the nightingale ..."
Rudolf's letter from prison, 24 April, 1952
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"Margolius … survived the Nazi concentration camps and after the war enrolled into the Communist Party from the real conviction: that never again would be repeated what had happened in the past, that no one would be persecuted for his or hers racial, national or social origins, in order for all people to be equal, in order to establish an era of real freedom. A couple of years later the comrades succeeded in what the Nazis had not managed: they killed him." Pavel Tigrid, Kapesní průvodce inteligentní ženy po vlastním osudu, 68 Publishers, Toronto 1988, p. 97.
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The Scotsman reported on 16 May, 1968:
"Czechoslovak President Ludvík Svoboda has awarded the Order of the Republic posthumously to Rudolf Margolius, former Deputy Foreign Trade Minister executed in 1952 after the Stalinist Slánský Trial. Margolius was accused of being a member of the “anti-party conspiratorial centre,” and was sentenced to death along with former Party Secretary Rudolf Slánský and nine others on November 27, 1952. Slánský and the others were judicially rehabilitated by the Supreme Court in 1963. All had been accused of high treason, espionage and sabotage and organising a Jewish plot to bring down the régime."
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The Youngest Hanged in the Trial with the Slánský Group was Rudolf Margolius. But Why Him, is a Mystery to Historians. ("Nejmladším oběšeným v procesu se skupinou Slánského byl Rudolf Margolius. Proč zrovna on, je ale pro historiky záhadou.")
David Hertl, Český rozhlas Plus, 1 December, 2022 (in Czech).
*
Le Procès - Prague 1952, (2021) 1hr 10min documentary film by Ruth Zylberman for ARTE France & Pernel Media had the world premiere at the FIPADOC International Documentary Festival, Biarritz, France on January 18, 2022. The new documentary made from the Slánský trial film and audio records found by chance in 2018 in a warehouse in the suburb of Prague served as a starting point for this documentary film. The director tells the story of the trial through the descendants of three of the condemned: the daughter and grandson of Rudolf Slánský, the son and granddaughter of Rudolf Margolius, both executed after the trial, and the three children of Artur London, who was sentenced to life imprisonment
*
In London in 1949 Rudolf Margolius negotiated and signed several important economic and financial agreements with Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour and National Service, and Sir William Strang, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who represented the British Government. The agreements through Margolius' effort were weighted in favour of the Czechoslovak trade rather than the British trade. Czechoslovak government was satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations and requested that the effort of all those who had participated would be appreciated. (Jan Kuklík, Do poslední pence, Nakladatelství Karolinum, Praha, 2007, p. 286)
However, during the Slánský Trial, Rudolf Margolius' 1949 negotiations were unjustly held against him.He was accused of sabotage and endangering the Czechoslovak economy, which became one of the main indictment against him.
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"Never in my life have I heard or recognised a nightingale's song. Now under the window, outside, I hear every day, but mainly in the morning when the sun rises and in the evening at sunset, the beautiful solo song of the nightingale ..."
Rudolf's letter from prison, 24 April, 1952
*
"Margolius … survived the Nazi concentration camps and after the war enrolled into the Communist Party from the real conviction: that never again would be repeated what had happened in the past, that no one would be persecuted for his or hers racial, national or social origins, in order for all people to be equal, in order to establish an era of real freedom. A couple of years later the comrades succeeded in what the Nazis had not managed: they killed him." Pavel Tigrid, Kapesní průvodce inteligentní ženy po vlastním osudu, 68 Publishers, Toronto 1988, p. 97.
*
The Scotsman reported on 16 May, 1968:
"Czechoslovak President Ludvík Svoboda has awarded the Order of the Republic posthumously to Rudolf Margolius, former Deputy Foreign Trade Minister executed in 1952 after the Stalinist Slánský Trial. Margolius was accused of being a member of the “anti-party conspiratorial centre,” and was sentenced to death along with former Party Secretary Rudolf Slánský and nine others on November 27, 1952. Slánský and the others were judicially rehabilitated by the Supreme Court in 1963. All had been accused of high treason, espionage and sabotage and organising a Jewish plot to bring down the régime."
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Selection of books about JUDr Rudolf Margolius
Heda Margolius Kovály and Helena Třeštíková:
Hitler, Stalin and I: An Oral History, DoppelHouse Press, Los Angeles, 2018, 160 pages, ISBN 978-0-9987770-0-9 hc,, 978-0-9978184-7-5 pb.
Heda Margolius Kovály:
Under A Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968, Granta, London, 2012, 192 pages, ISBN 978-1-84708-476-7.
Heda Margolius Kovály:
Under A Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968, Holmes & Meier, New York, 1997, 194 pages, ISBN 978-0-8419-1377-6.
Heda Margoliová Kovályová:
Na vlastní kůži, Edice Paměť, Academia, Praha 2012, 192 str., ISBN 978-80-200-2038-3.
Ivan Margolius:
Reflections of Prague: Journeys through the 20th century, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 2006, 318 pages, 58 illustrations, ISBN 0470-02219-1.
Ivan Margolius:
Praha za zrcadlem: Putování 20. stoletím, Argo, Praha, 2007, 345 stránek, 41 ilustrací, ISBN 978-80-7203-947-0.
Ivan Margolius:
Riflessi di Praga, Poldi Libri, Granze, 2023, 336 pages, 51 illustrations, ISBN 978-88-940346-3-9.
Jan Kuklík:
Do poslední pence, Nakladatelství Karolinum, Praha, 2007, 472 stránek, ISBN 978-80-246-1332-1.
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Selection of books about JUDr Rudolf Margolius
Heda Margolius Kovály and Helena Třeštíková:
Hitler, Stalin and I: An Oral History, DoppelHouse Press, Los Angeles, 2018, 160 pages, ISBN 978-0-9987770-0-9 hc,, 978-0-9978184-7-5 pb.
Heda Margolius Kovály:
Under A Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968, Granta, London, 2012, 192 pages, ISBN 978-1-84708-476-7.
Heda Margolius Kovály:
Under A Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968, Holmes & Meier, New York, 1997, 194 pages, ISBN 978-0-8419-1377-6.
Heda Margoliová Kovályová:
Na vlastní kůži, Edice Paměť, Academia, Praha 2012, 192 str., ISBN 978-80-200-2038-3.
Ivan Margolius:
Reflections of Prague: Journeys through the 20th century, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 2006, 318 pages, 58 illustrations, ISBN 0470-02219-1.
Ivan Margolius:
Praha za zrcadlem: Putování 20. stoletím, Argo, Praha, 2007, 345 stránek, 41 ilustrací, ISBN 978-80-7203-947-0.
Ivan Margolius:
Riflessi di Praga, Poldi Libri, Granze, 2023, 336 pages, 51 illustrations, ISBN 978-88-940346-3-9.
Jan Kuklík:
Do poslední pence, Nakladatelství Karolinum, Praha, 2007, 472 stránek, ISBN 978-80-246-1332-1.
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A memorial plaque dedicated to Rudolf Margolius is located on the family tomb at New Jewish Cemetery, Izraelská 1, Prague 3, sector no. 21, row no. 13, plot no. 33, directly behind Franz Kafka’s grave.
All images : copyright 2024 Margolius Family Archive
Copyright © 2024 Ivan Margolius
All images : copyright 2024 Margolius Family Archive
Copyright © 2024 Ivan Margolius